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PROBLEMS OF APPLYING A SEMIOTIC METHODOLOGY IN MODERN JURISPRUDENCE AND BIOETHICS // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 4 (22). P. 126-155

The article aims to analyze the problems of applying a semiotic methodology in modern jurisprudence and bioethics. It is shown that the conductor of the semiotic methodology in legal research is the semiotics of law, an interdisciplinary scientific branch intensively developing since the 1970s. The current state of the semiotics of law is primarily due to the lack of a theoretical, conceptual and methodological unity. At the same time, the diversity and the “conflicts” of scientific theories, concepts and methods are observed not only at the level of interaction between semiotics and jurisprudence, but also within semiotics itself. The article considers the main scientific directions that laid the foundation for the formation of the semiotics of law, associated with two cardinal lines of the initial development of general semiotics: logical, leading its tradition from Charles Peirce’s works, and linguistic, the founder of which is Ferdinand de Saussure. It is concluded that significant methodological difficulties for the development of the semiotics of law and the application of the semiotic methodology in legal research is the lack of common concepts. It is also shown that the phenomenon of multimodality poses new challenges for the semiotics of law. It presupposes an increased research interest in non-verbal legal signs: natural, figurative, and action signs. The analysis of figurative and action signs, the results of the research of other law-related discourses (political, religious, etc.) may be particularly useful for the productive development of the semiotics of law. The article also gives an idea of heuristic possibilities of applying the semiotic approach in bioethics. In this field, it is generally accepted that semiotic problems are more likely to be related to logic, epistemology, or cognitive science, but can only be indirectly related to ethical problems of biomedicine. Based on the ideas of Charles Peirce and Victoria Welby, the article examines the historical and philosophical prerequisites for the development of the semiotics of ethics and shows that this field of research can serve as a philosophical and methodological basis for the development of semiotic research in the field of bioethics. The semiotic approach to bioethics, as stressed in the article, should be based on the problems of human body rights. They are the “semantic universals” (Umberto Eco) that can be considered inherent to the whole of humanity. In the author’s opinion, the explication of the problems of “body rights”, “somatic” law, within the framework of the semiotic approach, can become a link for the rapprochement of the semiotics of law and semiotic research in the field of bioethics.

Keywords: semiotics of law, semiotics of bioethics, semiotic methodology in legal research, sign, meaning, language games, ethics of meaning